Appropriate
by whopooh
Summary: He shifted slightly towards her, and it was only a split second before he did it that she realized the movement was actually coming. - I have seen fics that explore what would have happened if Aunt Prudence never interrupted them in the hallway in the end of "Unnatural Habits". But what if she did - only a few minutes later than in the episode?
1. Chapter 1

Thank you so much for your lovely comments on my latest fic, "The Lady in the Magazine". They made me very happy, and I'm so glad you found it fun!

I tell you Toodles Galore, I can't think of many compliments that would be better than yours, giving me the middle name of "Hilarity"! And thank you all of you, I'm so happy you enjoyed the story - and yesss, AN, I also thought of Miriam M on talk shows!

This fic is set in the end of season 2. A very simply question was the start of it all: I have seen fics exploring what would have happened if Aunt Prudence never interrupted them in the hallway in the end of "Unnatural Habits". But what if she did - but a few minutes later than in the episode? This is my answer to that question...

* * *

It was late in the evening – later than was entirely appropriate.

Jack Robinson was standing before her, coat still on, clasping his hat in both hands. Phryne had been on her way to bed when she heard the soft knock on the door, and was only wearing her black kimono. She could sense his presence through the thin material. He seemed solid as a rock, but at the same time threatening to be nothing but an ephemeral image – she was certain he was there to say goodbye. And if this was a farewell, then she would allow herself the indulgence of telling him how she saw his very nature:

"Jack Robinson. The man who always does the right thing. The noble thing."

He searched her eyes.

"Not always, Miss Fisher."

Time stopped and he shifted slightly towards her. It was only a split second before he did it that she realized the movement was actually coming – that something was building in him behind that intense gaze, something he couldn't keep in anymore. Her heart fluttered frantically at the realisation. His hat fell to the floor as he reached out and grasped her waist with both hands, pulling her towards him. Finally, gloriously, his lips were on hers.

The kiss was as intense as it was tentative, his lips eager but still undemanding. He seemed to be on the very brink of letting down his guard completely; Phryne could almost hear the walls crumbling inside him. She sighed and allowed the cautiousess for a while, then reached up to wrap her arms around his neck, pressing herself to him fully. She opened her mouth, making the kiss more in line with the tension rippling through her body.

It was as if a flood of electricity rose in her, needing a connection to release its charge – her crackling tension searching for his groundedness to actually release the flash of lightning. As their tongues met, it did ignite. He crushed his mouth against hers more decisively and his embrace grew stronger, one hand sneaking further down from her waist, the other upwards, as if he wanted to enclose her completely. Her own hands were busy making a mess of his hair, finally allowed to untangle those perfectly restrained curls.

Her brain had started to form the thought of dragging him upstairs, and she whispered his name against his mouth, savouring it as if it was unique and not one of the impossibly common ones. As the kiss grew more intense, he elicited the most delicious moan. _Jack Robinson moaning!_ Phryne decided she needed to entice that sound from him again. With a harder press of her body against him, she managed to rip a much rougher groan from his throat when...

"Was that the baby?"

The words were coming from the doorway to the dining room, swiftly followed by a loud inhalation and a very sharp _"PHRYNE!"_

They quickly tried to untangle themselves, Jack letting go of her derrière as if his life depended on it; nothing they managed was even close to dignified. Exasperated, Phryne turned to face her aunt:

"Aunt Prudence! What are you doing here?"

In the corner of her eye, she could see Jack turn painfully crimson, still facing away from Prudence. He produced a taut smile of deep embarrassment that was slightly tinged with self-ridicule, and it made her ache to see it develop. He refused to meet her eyes.

Prudence Stanley was at a loss for words, confining herself to give her best impression of a scandalised lady from the upper crust of society.

"It's very late, Inspector," she finally managed, pointedly.

Jack turned to face her for the first time, his colour still not back to normal, making a small, polite nod:

"Yes. Yes, it is."

And before Phryne had a chance to react, he mumbled a defeated goodbye and set for the door. He behaved as if they had done something wrong, as if they were teenagers that had been found out by their parents, Phryne thought. She was about to protest when Prudence raised her voice.

"Don't forget your hat, Inspector." She eyed the garment laying forgotten on the floor as if it was personally offending her.

He quickly retrieved it and headed again for the door, quietly nodding a "Mrs Stanley, Miss Fisher". Then he was gone.

Prudence and Phryne stared at each other.

"I can't believe you interrupted us!" Phryne exclaimed.

"I can't believe you were doing something that needed interruption," her aunt huffed.

"You scared him away."

"I did nothing of the kind. The Inspector probably only needed some help to realise this was not at all appropriate."

"Appropriate," Phryne snorted. "When have I ever cared about appropriate?"

Before Prudence could answer there was a wail from the baby, and she was happy to grasp the offered diversion.

"It's alright, little man. I'm coming," she cooed, leaving Phryne alone in the hall with a last, reproachful glance.

Phryne bristled from the quick turns of the evening. It had all seemed so promising, so unexpectedly glorious, and now she was suddenly alone. Should she head out after him? It seemed ridiculous after the events of the day, and with the speed he'd retreated by he was probably halfway to Richmond already. There was nothing to it but to head up the stairs and go to bed.

* * *

It wasn't her best night ever. She was stiff from having been bound and gagged, and from running and fighting on the ship. The ointments Mr Butler had given her helped, but they couldn't take away her dreams: a barrel of a gun being pointed at her; a man's smile when he realised she was at his mercy; another man kissing her and then abandoning her. The day blurred together.

Early in the morning there was a knock on her bedroom door. Before she was fully conscious, hope began to stir in her stomach. Could it be...?

Through half-opened eyes she saw the door open to reveal Aunt Prudence towering in the doorway. It was astounding how the woman could tower in spite of her short height.

"Phryne Fisher! I really couldn't wait any longer to talk to you!" Prudence boomed as she closed the door. She was a little bit out of breath from climbing the stairs, sporting a scolding expression. "What were you thinking? With the Inspector! In the middle of the night! Hardly even dressed!"

"Why would you presume I was thinking?" Phryne answered, more to make her aunt gasp than anything.

She wasn't happy about her aunt meddling. Of course Prudence would still be hoping for her to make a proper match in the aristocracy.

"You have to think about his reputation!" Prudence exclaimed.

" _His_ reputation?"

"Clearly yours isn't in more danger than usual," Prudence observed levelly. "But the inspector is a servant of the law. And one who has just arrested his own father-in-law."

" _Former_ father-in-law, Aunt P. I had no idea you cared about him so intensely," Phryne said, trying for sarcasm.

"Nothing has real repercussions for you, Phryne, but his position is completely different."

Prudence came to sit at Phryne's bedside, which caught Phryne completely off guard. She couldn't even remember the last time a maternal figure had come and sat at her bedside, disapproval on her face or not. It was definitely before the war, perhaps even before Janey's disappearance. Her eyes filled up with tears at the intimate gesture, made without a second thought. She looked away so her aunt wouldn't see it.

Prudence hesitantly laid her hand on Phryne's arm and softened her voice slightly.

"You know I love you like you were my own daughter, Phryne. But the inspector is a serious man, he's a… he's an ordinary man. What are your intentions with him? Shouldn't you just let him continue with his own life?"

"I'll have you know it wasn't me who showed up unannounced past midnight. You cannot mean I should have turned the man down?"

"Just _think_ , Phryne. What is this to you?"

Annoyed at her aunt, Phryne still felt the need to refute her.

"It's..."

How was she supposed to be able to put that into words? And what was it to him?

Had Jack perhaps only reacted to the relief after the dramatic case – to the shock of having shot a man that was about to shoot her? Had she only reacted to that relief, to still being alive? Would he have come to his senses and realised it was a bad idea? Of course she already knew something about the depth of his feelings, but she also knew he had never wanted to act on them before. How could she trust this action to be what he wanted?

Perhaps he was grateful that Aunt P had interrupted them? Or was it Phryne who ought to be grateful?

It would have been so much simpler if her aunt hadn't shown up. Then she would have had him by her side now, and wouldn't it all, in a sense, have been decided for them? Or, if Aunt P had only shown up a few minutes earlier, before they had started to kiss. Then they could have pretended that nothing had happened, that nothing had been about to happen, and carried on as usual.

But this! Going too far but not far enough, balancing on a knife's edge – it was the worst possible scenario. It made her stomach ache in a way it never used to do.

That had been a charged kiss, a promising kiss, so very far from a chaste meeting of lips, and really not only about lips at all. The feel of him still lingered on her body and made it even more difficult to think. _How do I know if I want this more than anything? What does that even feel like?_

"It's..." she repeated, unable to continue the sentence.

"It's a gamble, Phryne. You are gambling, but the two of you have very unequal stakes."

She had rather thought of it as a dance, two steps in front, one step back. Aunt Prudence made it sound so much crasser. In the bleak morning light, Phryne couldn't help but feel she had a point, and she hated that she was actually considering things from her aunt's perspective. She was used to doing and thinking the exact opposite of what her aunt did and thought, and to laugh in the face of conventionality.

This time – perhaps it was because she was still tired from the kidnapping, perhaps it was because Prudence actually sat at her bedside and _patted_ her – she couldn't shake it off so easily. Jack was a man who cared about propriety. What if Aunt Prudence was right? What if the last thing he needed in his life was a charming freight train? But wasn't there something to be said about things you might not _need_ , but still very much want?

"Just think about it." Prudence gave her a last pat on the arm before she stood and left the room.

Phryne sat in her bed staring into the wall. She felt as if the two of them had jumped a ravine, but without enough momentum to actually reach the other side. She groaned and buried her face in the pillow. There was no reasonable way she could _think_ herself out of this conundrum.


	2. Chapter 2

_Thank you for your lovely reviews. I'm so happy you liked my interpretation of this very delicate situation!_

 _Thank you OahuGirl01, I'm super glad you like the characterisations. And that y'all want a continuation_ – _yes, there is more, this fic has three chapters. I hear you Miss T, I know it's lovely with really long fics to dive into, but it seems I'm not a marathon writer, I'm more of a sprinter. I simply can't make them long; I'll have to do what I can with the shorter format._

 _Now it's time for Jack's point of view!_

* * *

Jack was acutely aware his exit hadn't been the most dignified imaginable. There was something in the emotional rollercoaster of the day – from finding Phryne's lock pick on the floor of the ship and realising she had been captured, to kissing her, to finding Prudence Stanley pursing her lips at him – that had just made him blank out, react like an adolescent, and flee. He wasn't proud of it.

When he had seen Phryne stand in that hallway, open and somehow bared to his eyes, his heart had constricted rather painfully. She wasn't exactly vulnerable – she didn't need make-up and clothes to live up to her part of being an animated force of nature, it was something that came naturally to her – but she was so obviously _there_ and not on her way on an adventure or a shenanigan. He felt he was somehow allowed to see the whole of Phryne Fisher, with all her layers and emotions, and there was a sadness to her manner that took his breath away.

"I just wanted to see you" – that was what he had wanted to say. "I just _needed_ to see you." But nothing came out. Instead, he answered her questions, not sure of how to approach the subject matter that had made him visit her in the middle of the night. It was such a momentous topic for him, he found he couldn't put his thoughts into words.

It was in that moment she had said those words, about him being a noble man. With that serene voice of hers, it sounded so definitive. But the last thing he wanted was to be categorised, defined – he felt he was changing, transforming, expanding, more than ever after having met her. He was overwhelmed by a feeling of _now or never_ , and decided he couldn't bear never. He reached out to pull her to him, and kissed her.

Sitting now in the car, driving back towards his home in Richmond in the middle of the night, the memory made him almost giddy.

He already knew something about kissing Phryne, but he hadn't imagined the difference it would make that she was now fully aware of what was happening, and focusing on him. He took her in his arms, like he had wanted to do more times than he could count. He revelled in feeling her against him, sensing her through that thin robe she was wearing. As their kiss grew heated, he felt a bolt of lightning burn straight through him, almost incinerating him. _This_ was how it felt to kiss Phryne Fisher – to press her to him, to hear her whisper against his lips. It was like containing electricity in his arms, like being scorched beyond recognition and not regretting it for a moment.

He felt as if he had taken a dive into the unknown, but knowing she was there with him made him feel sure of what he was doing.

All that altered when a scandalised voice interrupted them. It took him a few seconds to realise where he was, what he was doing, and above all in front of whom. Of all people, to be interrupted by Prudence Stanley! Suddenly he felt fumbling, stumbling, inadequate, and entirely alone.

If he and Phryne had only managed to have some kind of conversation, if only he knew where they were heading. But standing up to Prudence Stanley when he was just a severely scorched man, with no footing and no direction? He couldn't. He felt Phryne looking at him from the corner of her eye, probably expecting something from him, but he couldn't give it to her.

For once in his life, he had decided to follow his emotions, and not be the overthinker. Not that he hadn't _thought_ – he had sat in his car for a long while before he had decided to do this, to hell with propriety and caution. She had almost died in front of his eyes that day, by the hands of Sidney Fletcher, the triply damned bastard. He had thought her dead once before, in that crumpled car on the side of the road; this time he knew that the unbearable thing would be to walk away from her. There was no course but to forge ahead. He had walked the steps from his car to her door because he needed to see her, needed to hear her voice, and needed to tell her all the different things he felt for her. He was a little bit amazed at how far he had come in only a few months.

Then it all went spectacularly wrong, and he couldn't stop himself from fleeing. Fleeing, from a disapproving aunt! The cowardice! Would she think he wasn't sincere in his feelings, when he proved to be so fainthearted? He rested his forehead against the steering wheel and groaned.

What now? Jack wondered, parking his car and entering his home. What were they actually to each other, nothing said and only a little done? He was still suspended in air – having taken the leap, but without ever having landed. Had he destroyed everything they had but without creating anything new? Should he call her? Make a visit?

He recalled the sound he had made when Phryne kissed him, and the very certain fact that her Aunt Prudence must have overheard it. Mortification was only one of several beasts fighting in his chest. He was not used to showing his hand, or his heart, and definitely not his bodily desires. Now he had given himself away, but in such an incomplete way and without knowing much about how it was received. She had obviously kissed him back, and it wasn't from surprise; this was not another Café Repliqué. But, what was it instead?

He didn't know what to think.

Changing quickly into pyjamas he laid down on his bed, feeling like he had a fever but knowing he hadn't. Suppressing emotions, waiting things out – that was one of the things he was most successful at managing. Perhaps he could master that again, despite having fought so hard to escape the prison of that reserve, just for once. He didn't want to do his usual impersonation of a clam that snaps shut when somebody pokes at it, but he didn't seem to be able to change that reaction. Perhaps he didn't have to be rash. Perhaps he could wait a day or two for his mind to settle and his body to stop burning and bristling.

He was sure there would be so much commotion at the station in the coming days he wouldn't be able to do anything but follow the flood. Perhaps he could wait until after that to decide how to approach the mystery of what he was to Phryne Fisher. Perhaps, given enough time, he would be able to somehow think his way out of this situation.

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	3. Chapter 3

_Thank you for your kind comments on the chapter about Jack and his musings, they made me very happy._

 _Here is the last chapter!_

* * *

At lunch time, some hours after Aunt Prudence's early visit, Phryne had decided her best way of proceeding was to incarnate that infamous freight train and barge on, just to get it all over with. Wearing red and white and all the momentum she could muster, Phryne arrived at City South in a flurry.

At the front desk stood a young constable she had only seen in passing before, and whose name she had trouble recalling. She didn't believe him when he claimed the Inspector wasn't in – not until he let her through so she could see for herself that the minimal office was empty. It turned out that capturing a ring of slave traders, shooting one of them, and arresting a senior policeman wasn't something you could do and then just go back to normal. Both Jack and Hugh had been taken off their normal schedules to spend their time at Russell Street.

She contemplated seeking him out in his home, and smiled at the thought of surprising him. But the memory of that acutely embarrassed smile, and Jack not even looking at her… it made her reconsider the idea. To suddenly break through into his private sphere, where she had never ever been invited – it didn't seem like the best way to handle the precarious balancing act she had found herself in. For some reason the same went for the head-quarters, where he would be bound to be scrutinized by his superiors and peers. She couldn't see him being happy with her bursting in on him in that unfamiliar setting, to talk about private matters.

It seemed that when Jack wasn't at City South, she didn't really have any means to contact him.

 _Isn't that odd_ , she thought to herself. _I have thought of us as friends, but if he isn't working we don't have any places in common_.

Except Wardlow, of course. But that was dependent on him choosing to come to her.

He didn't, not that night or the next. She couldn't help but feel that was ominous.

* * *

"Maybe I was just carried away in the moment."

"Maybe you were."

"Or maybe I really want this more than anything else?"

"Maybe you do."

"Maybe he regrets it all?"

"Maybe he does."

"Or maybe he just doesn't dare to show up again?"

Mac, reclining in one of Phryne's chairs in the parlour, regarded her over a generously filled tumbler.

"You know, Phryne, you are very good at finding different possibilities."

Phryne made a very small huff into her own drink.

"You know, Mac, you're not really much help right now."

Mac sipped her drink and gave a half smile.

"You never struck me as a fretter, Phryne."

"I am not. My philosophy is to always go ahead and do something. It's just, in this case, there seems to be nothing I can do."

"Unless you make Aunt P go to Russell Street to take him by the ear and fetch him for you."

Phryne snorted so hard she got whisky up her nose.

"Ouch, that hurt!" she laughed, then turned a stern face at her friend. "I know you think I'm childish right now, there's no need to rub it in."

"But rubbing it in is so delightful, how could I not?" Mac teased. "It's very rare to see you so dumbfounded by something that isn't really important."

The look on Phryne's face was anything but enigmatic.

"Oh, but it is important, isn't it?" Mac retracted. "It's important, you just don't really know how, and why."

"I can't believe I'm considering Aunt P's ideas. It has never happened before. You remember when we were kids…"

"Of course I do. Her look when she discovered we kept those frogs in her finest soup bowl. Still one of the best days of my life..." She smiled. "I can see you listening to advice even when it comes from a surprising source. But aren't you underestimating Jack Robinson? Do you think of him as... so much for propriety. So much like your aunt?"

Phryne looked blankly at her friend.

"I don't usually think of him as an old lady that has a specific fondness for charity committees and flummery, no."

"You know what I mean. All about propriety and holding up a facade. All about being the opposite to what you are, and following other people's rules? I don't think that's fair to him. He's much more open-minded than he seems at a first impression. He even endures you and me together when we're imbibing alcohol."

Phryne thought about Aunt Prudence's declaration of Jack as an ordinary man. She thought about him always wearing those three-piece suits and his meticulous ties, but also ready to understand people and not judge them. And he didn't judge her, he never had. She trusted his instincts, his kindness, and he had come to her, in the middle of the night, and kissed her like she was the most precious thing on Earth. He was not ordinary in any sense that mattered. Of course she wouldn't equate him with her aunt. It would be entirely unfair.

"You are right. I have no idea how he endures it," she retorted with a smile.

"Patience personified," Mac said. "That's the only possibility. And I guess that might be what you'd need, isn't it?"

That earned Mac a slight grimace. She finished her drink and decided against a refill. "Early morning tomorrow," she declared and bid Phryne a good night.

Phryne sat in her parlour for another half hour, finishing her own drink and thinking. He was not ordinary in her book, nor were his kisses, and she wasn't going to try to decide for him whether he could endure her or not. That must be his decision. If she could only get hold of him to actually find out.

* * *

When Dot came up with the breakfast tray the next morning, Phryne was already awake. She felt almost like an alligator, laying in ambush among the reeds for the poor girl.

"Good morning Dot. How is Hugh? I haven't heard about him for days."

Dot gave her a quick glance of surprise. Hugh Collins was usually not the first person on Miss Phryne's mind in the mornings.

"He's been terribly busy, I've hardly had the chance to speak to him. At first he was anxious about me, after the kidnapping and the thermos fight." Dot gave a small, rather proud, smile. "But the past few days, he's been so busy at the head-quarters. It's a miracle I even heard from him this morning."

Phryne prickled her ears like an attentive dog. "And how was he today?"

"Not very happy, Miss. It seems they have a full day again. But he telephoned to summon us as witnesses. They want us there at three o'clock."

Of course. How had she not thought about that! _Of course_ they would be summoned to make statements, considering they had been kidnapped and almost shipped away by that horrible captain – not to mention her almost being shot by Sidney Fletcher. Phryne decided this would also be her break-through in the communication with Jack.

At a quarter to three, Dot and Phryne arrived at Russell Street, perfectly contrasted in peach and blue. Phryne was both thrilled and apprehensive about being on the other side of the table from Jack, being there as a witness and not as an investigator. Especially as she hadn't even seen him since he had most sincerely caressed her backside.

The anticipation was short-lived. Soon she realised she wouldn't even see the elusive man. The case was too delicate to allow the acting inspector to handle the witness statements himself, and the questions Phryne was asked went in two directions, on the one hand to determine the crimes, on the other to determine the actions of the policemen. It wasn't bad – she thoroughly enjoyed being an observant witness – it was only somewhat disappointing.

When her hour was up she exchanged places with Dot, and sat down in the lobby to wait for her companion. She watched the "Wanted"-signs intently for something to occupy her mind, reading the texts backwards and forwards as was her habit when she was bored. When she had read about the wanted Douglas Morton, suspected of murder, a fifth time, she decided she would go mad if she didn't move around a little.

Just as she rose to walk out, three men came through the door. They were all dressed in grey and brown, and they simultaneously took off their fedoras as they entered the building. It was the most common male look imaginable, but Phryne's heart immediately responded to one of the men's way of lowering his hat. There was no mistaking this man for just any man, and she felt that flood of electricity again bolt through her and seek out his presence.

"Jack!" she exclaimed.

"Miss Fisher." He looked struck, going completely still. The men dropped silent. Jack's tone revealed nothing, but his eyes were bursting with eloquence.

After a couple of heartbeats, he seemed to remember his manners.

"This is the Honourable Miss Fisher," he said to the men she had so easily relegated to the background. "May I introduce Detective Inspector Silverton and Senior Constable O'Hara."

Their eyes lit up, and when they told her it was a pleasure to meet her, it was clear they were sincere.

Phryne had only a little energy for their pleasantry, though, smiling and nodding benignly. Her focus was consumed by the man before her, trying to determine if he was uncomfortable or happy to see her. It was obviously not only one emotion filling him at the moment.

"What are you… oh, you're giving your statement, aren't you?" he said.

"Yes, or I already did. They were quite interested in your decision to shoot one of the men," Phryne responded.

He nodded.

"Robinson is not the one to carelessly pull the trigger," DI Silverton said. "In all his time in the force, he has only shot someone a few times on duty, no one deadly. That is quite the record. It must have turned rather heated in this case."

"It did," Phryne answered, without taking her eyes off Jack. "Rather heated."

There was something tense in her voice as she said it, and the colleagues were surprised to see Jack Robinson go a little bit red under the woman's gaze, without looking away from her even for a moment.

"I guess it did," he answered quietly.

"I was thinking we might need to see that through at some point, Inspector," she continued. "Determine what actually happened, and how to appropriately measure the heat of the case."

With increasing curiosity, the men saw Jack Robinson swallow hard and slow, and after a moment's hesitation give the tiniest of nods.

"If you deem it potentially fruitful, Miss Fisher," he said, his voice rougher than usual.

"I do," the blue-clad woman answered, not looking away from the Inspector and expertly arching one eyebrow. "I do think there might be a hidden potential lying in this direction. If you don't find it too… much to endure?"

Again it took some time before he managed to respond, this time with a lop-sided smile and a shake of the head, both small enough to go unnoticed by anyone but the very attentive. They were standing completely still, which was an odd contrast to the everyday surroundings, and to the electricity in their eyes.

The slightly buzzing silence was interrupted by a door opening, as a policeman saw a young woman out of the interrogation room.

"Dot!" Phryne exclaimed in greeting as she turned to the door. "Are you all set?"

"Yes Miss," Dot nodded, looking relieved at seeing Phryne there. Phryne's eyes returned to Jack. "I'm sending Dot away Friday evening. That could be a beneficial time for starting the inquiry. Eight o'clock?"

Jack Robinson nodded as if in trance.

With a final "Come along, Dot", the Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher took her companion's arm and swept out of the station, nodding to the two men and sending one last challenging glance the inspector's way. There was a magic show coming to town. She was quite certain she would be able to get tickets for the first evening show.

* * *

 _Note: I skipped the "Christmas in July"-standalone, and imagine here that "Unnatural habits" is followed immediately by "Death defying feats". I have also shortened the time span between the two episodes a bit. I hope no one minds too much!_


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